


Bad Advice

by OliviaMarie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Dating, F/M, First Love, Fluff maybe?, but only because naru is his baby, but then she has an epiphany, even though he's bad at communicating his own emotions towards her, kakashi gives bad advice, kurenai fixes things, naru is clueless, one person doesn't know they are dating, recognizing ones own feelings, sneak dating, vague mentions of bad childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9557177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OliviaMarie/pseuds/OliviaMarie
Summary: Naru has an epiphany; she goes to Kakashi for advice. His advice is terrible, but he's just trying to keep Naru as a baby.





	

  
“Oh.” Naru stops washing the dishes they no longer need, staring at Chouji with wide eyes. He turns to her, curious and smelling of worry-curious-sad-hopeful-content which isn’t entirely unusual. Chouji always has a mix of sad-hopeful-content around her. It’s confusing, but many people smell that way around other people. Right now with the afternoon light coming in through her apartment window he looks stunning. She notes how handsome he’s becoming and how prominent his cheeks look with the ruddy red swirls on his cheeks. It makes her stomach flip flop and tingle all at once. “Oh.” She sits in the wobbly chair she got from a D-Rank where the woman was throwing the broken thing away. The one she had to buy a book on woodworking to figure out how to fix up enough for someone to sit on.

“Naru?” Chouji calls her attention to him, no that she was looking anywhere else. This new found epiphany seems to have stopped her brain function, though. Absently she notes that Chouji has let go of the ladle he was stirring the ramen with, the utensil spinning wildly around the pot not that it didn’t have his hand to keep it steady. “You okay?”

“Fine.” She hears herself say, and then she shakes her head to clear it of her thoughts. “Just great.” She beams at him, but she has a feeling that he knows her heart isn’t really in it. He lets her get away with it, though, doling out the ramen for them both to eat. She keeps up a conversation, but by the looks and emotions that she gets from Chouji, he knows she isn't exactly present with him.

When he leaves, she leans against the door and drops to the floor. Her heart is pounding, her palms are sweating, and she really really has to pee. She takes a long breath in, drawing the air into her lungs until it hurts. After she’s done calming herself done, she goes to the bathroom. It’s starting to get dark out, but Kakashi-sensei is probably still up. She desperately hopes he still is, and if he isn’t she’ll be waking him up. She needs advice, and Jiji doesn’t have time for her. Kakashi is responsible for her, and is suppose to teach her these things right?

She darts across the village, tracking his freshest scent back to his apartment. She pounds on his door urgently, and he opens it so suddenly she ends up knocking on his chest. He seems very concerned—panic-worry-sadness-guilt-anger-surprise. “What’s wrong?” Kakashi-sensei asks her, and she shoulders her way into pace his living room floor. Absently, she thinks that his apartment is rather lovely; if only a little barren. She’d have to remember to buy his a plant.

She can’t think, her thoughts only rounding back to Chouji and her sudden enlightenment. She stops pacing to look at Kakashi, and suddenly she’s crying. Kakashi is very panicked now, and she hears a poof along with the sudden small spike of chakra. However, she’s thrown herself to the floor in her upset state, and she doesn’t even know why she’s upset except that she is. She’s very upset, and she’s very sad now. She barely notices a tongue licking her face, or Kakashi sitting next to her head to pet her forehead awkwardly.

In time, what must have been an hour or more, she’s calmed down. As she catches her breath she rubs at her eyes, looking at the small dog that her old ANBU guard used to summon for her to play with. She frowns at Pakkun but makes the connection that Kakashi must have been that ANBU. She ignores that for now, turning onto her side to cuddle with Pakkun who’s snuggled up beside her.

“What’s wrong, Naru-chan?” Pakkun asks, licking her nose and making her laugh lowly. He rubs his nose along her cheek, making a soothing chuffing sound. It feels like she’s cried for years.

“I think I’m in love.” She states, and Pakkun gives her a very understanding nod. Kakashi seems to be choking, but Pakkun seems to understand her predicament, so she focuses on him instead.

“Have you told this person?” Pakkun asks, settling his head on her open hand. Her other hand scratches idly behind his right ear, where she knows he likes it the most.

“What?” Naru looks at him appalled. “Then he would know.” She hisses, and Pakkun heaves out a sigh.

“That’s true.” Pakkun agrees. “So, will you tell us who you think you’re in love with?”

“Chouji.” She says in barely a whisper because she trusts Kakashi and Pakkun. They always made sure she was safe. “But you can’t tell him!” She adds almost hysterical at the thought.

“Right, because he’ll know,” Pakkun says, looking to where Kakashi seems to be choking still. Naru frowns and looks up at him, wondering if she should help. “Ignore him, he’s an idiot,” Pakkun tells her, and she nods because Pakkun has never led her astray like Kakashi has.

“What do I do?” Naru asks desperately. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship—he’s been teaching me to cook, and he always pays for my meals when we go out together.” She says, and Pakkun is giving her a look she doesn’t recognize. Kakashi, who had been getting his breath back started to choke again, and she looked at him annoyed. He was supposed to be helping her, not nearly dying from being unable to breathe on his own. He was twenty-seven he should know how to do that himself. “He’ll hate me forever.”

“Naru,” Pakkun says slowly. “Kit, he’s not going to hate you.”

“He will. It’ll end our new food friendship, and he’ll hate me forever and ever.” She wails, and Kakashi seems rather okay with this.

“Boys aren’t worth the trouble.” He tells her seriously, and Pakkun huffs and reverses summons himself after saying something about humans. She didn’t hear. “The best thing to do is to distance yourself. Not so much as to break off the friendship, but enough that your feelings will go away.”

“You’re sure?” Naru asks because Kakashi has to have some experience with this right? He is pretty old. For a shinobi at least.

“Naru, my cute little student, I have been through this a million times. Just trust me.” He says, and she sniffs her nose. Her nose is all blocked and gross, and Kakashi is helpful enough to give her a tissue.

X

The next time Chouji asks if she’s free she says that Kakashi wanted to show her something, so she’s unavailable. He nods understandingly, and she promises the next time she’s free she’ll seek him out. He seems content with this, although she smells an extra shot of sadness on him. He smells similarly when Shikamaru is called away or when he hears a friend is sick, so she thinks that it’s just because he can’t hang out with her.

Naru does go out with him to Ichiraku when they both have an evening off, but then misses the next two times they make plans with the excuse that she’s in the middle of learning something and she almost has it, I don’t want to stop now in case I do get it.

All of this avoiding him on streets and bailing on plans every now and again is making her feel worse not better at all. In fact, somehow she’s grown more fond of Chouji because he is being so understanding. It also makes her feel guilty. So she seeks Kakashi out in the middle of sparring with her teammates, leaving her clones to fend of Sasuke’s super powered Jutsu's and Sakura’s failed attempts to catch her off guard.

“It isn’t working.” She tells Kakashi, who snaps his book closed with one hand. He straightens on his seat on the tree branch she’s found him in, turning rather serious.

“How isn’t it working?” Kakashi asks, and she frowns as she thinks about it.

“Well, I feel really bad about lying to Chouji and bailing on him. But then he’s so understanding about my excuses, and that just makes me like him more.” She swallows her urge to cry. She’s cried more in the last three weeks than she has in her entire life. “And I just have the urge to hang out with him more.”

“I have an idea,” Kakashi informs her, turning to face her fully. “Whenever you hang out with Chouji make sure another of your mutual friends is there—the more, the better really. That way you condition yourself into seeing all your socialization with Chouji as friend activities. All this alone time with him is just messing up your brain.”

“That makes sense.” Naru hums in thought. She was supposed to be going to dinner with Chouji tonight, but if she dragged along Sasuke it would be a friend thing. Not an almost date in her mind. It was the perfect plan. Maybe she could even talk sAkura into going to? Probably not, Sakura still hated her too much. But Sasuke and she were getting along quite well lately.

From then on out she makes sure to rope another of the Rookie Nine into going with them, which Chouji smells really sad about, but slowly he becomes content with it. He’ll sit next to her and talk to her about different foods, and she can see him as a friend. Just that. Although when she goes home and thinks about it, it makes her chest hurt and her stomach do funny things.

So instead of going back to Kakashi-sensei for help, since his methods weren’t working, she goes to the next best thing. Clearly, she needs a woman’s perspective to get out of this dire situation she’s found herself in, and the only woman she knows is Kurenai-sensei who used to help her buy her groceries and her clothes when she was little.

She finds Kurenai with Team Eight, and she watches as Kurenai actually participates in the training. It’s a little jarring to Naru, but she shrugs that off and waits for them to finish. Kurenai turns to her as soon as they’re done.

“Naru, what a pleasant surprise.” Kurenai greets, holding a hand out for Naru to step into her embrace. Naru soaks up the attention and contact, before stepping away a moment later. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh…” She glances to Kiba and Shino and Hinata, who are all staring at her in curiosity. She doesn’t want to let them know because what if they make fun of her? Or worse what if they told Chouji? She’d die if they told Chouji about her embarrassing feelings. “It’s a private thing.” She says, cheeks flushing red. Kurenai nods, sending her team home now that they are finished.

Kurenai brings Naru back to her apartment, sitting Naru down at the table as she makes tea. She sits and waits for Naru to start after producing the steeped liquid in front of them both. Naru chews on her nail as she thinks, wondering if this is a good idea. The more people that know, the bigger chance Chouji might find out and stop being her friend.

But, Naru realizes, she doesn't have to say who it is she likes.

“I like a boy.” She says because it seems stupid to admit that she’s in love. Love doesn’t happen to people like her. “And I went to Kakashi-sensei for help because I don’t want to like him because if he finds out he’ll stop being my friend and I don’t want that. Only Kakashi-sensei’s advice isn’t working, so I thought maybe you could help me?”

“What, exactly, was Kakashi’s advice?” Kurenai asks idly, but Naru feels as though she’s entered into a battle she wasn’t aware was taking place.

“Well, first he said that I should hang out with Cho—I mean the guy so much. I should stop going out for dinner with him and stop having him teach me how to cook. So I did, and I avoided him as much as I could, but that just made it worse because of Chouji—I mean…the boy—was so understanding about all my excuses and then I started to feel guilty about it. So then Kakashi-sensei told me to make sure that I have other friends around too because that would condition my brain into remembering that he’s just a friend and that I’m not actually in love with him. Kakashi-sensei muttered that I was too young to be in love, but my heart really hurts, and nothing he’s suggested has helped at all!” She says, and then she bursts into tears again, and she feels really stupid.

“Naru,” Kurenai says softly when she’s calmed down enough. “Kakashi’s an idiot. Can you tell me why you don’t want to love this boy?”

“Well, he’s one of my only friends. If he finds out he’s going to hate me.” Naru says, and Kurenai smells like threat-anger-sad.

“Naru, sweetheart, Chouji isn’t going to hate you for loving him.”

“Yes, he is. There’s no possible way he’s going to—that anyone is ever going to. Kurenai-sensei I’m a jinchuuriki, and even the villagers know that no one is ever going to love me.” Naru says and Kurenai grits her teeth as she swallows.

“You,” Kurenai says sternly. “Are more worthy of love than any person I have ever met.”

“But no one loves me,” Naru tells her. “My parents didn’t want me—the forth hated me so much he put the Kyuubi inside me. Jiji tolerates me—so does everyone else. Nobody actually wants me. Kakashi-sensei has to look after me because he’s been ordered to, and Sasuke sort of is okay with me now but he’s still super uncaring if we are friends or not and Sakura-chan absolutely hates me, she tells me all the time. She said no boy would ever like me because I’m to…to me.”

“That isn’t true.” Kurenai insists, coming around the table to drag Naru into a hug. “I love you very much. And your parents loved you so so much. The Forth recognized the strength that you held within you, that’s why he sealed Kyuubi in you—you protect everyone every moment of every day since the moment he was sealed in you. And Hokage-sama does love you; he’s just a busy man. You aren’t a burden to anyone. I promise you, that whether or not Chouji returns you’re feelings, he isn’t going to hate you for it. He’ll still be your friend.”

“But how do you know?” Naru asks, feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” Kurenai said, squatting down in front of her to hold Naru’s face between her hands. “Chouji has secretly been dating you—the dinners, the teaching you how to cook—that’s all just a way to try and get close to you. I’ve noticed on a few of your outings that he’s very enamored with you, he’s just waiting for you to take the first official move.”

“Are you sure?” Naru asked, and Kurenai nodded.

“Yes, now go find him and ask him if he can have dinner, and then you tell him, alright?” Kurenai tells her. “I have a wolf to murder.”

“Okay,” Naru says, a little confused on why she’d be murdering a wolf. Perhaps he was terrorizing some civilians?

X

Naru is sitting next to Chouji at Ichiraku, wondering how she should tell him. Sakura once told her that these types of womanly things needed subtly and tact—two things that Naru lacked badly. Taking a deep breath in, she turned to Chouji with a determined look. If he didn’t like her tactlessness than obviously, her didn’t like her. There was only one way to find out.

“Chouji,” she started, getting him to turn to her. He looked upset suddenly and smelled of sadness-hopelessness-scared. She’d ignore that for now because if she didn’t say this now she never would. “I really really like you,” she tells him firmly. “I think I might be in love with you, actually. And I’m sorry for acting weird or if you don’t feel the same. If you don;t I’ll understand, and I’ll back off and—“

“I like you too.” Chouji interrupts her, his face flaming to red. It’s cute. “I thought…I thought you were going to tell me to back off. That I was making you uncomfortable.”

“Oh.” Naru frowns at him. “I thought I was making you…nevermind. I went to Kakashi-sensei for advice, but I didn’t like avoiding you or canceling on you at the last moment for no reason. That’s why I was acting so weird—he said that I was too young to feel love and that I had to make you just a friend again. Kurenai-sensei said he was wrong and that I should tell you.” Naru rushes out. “She said you were taking me on dates.”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to,” Chouji says sheepishly. He smells happy-surprise-content now, and she really likes the scent on him. “I didn’t want you to say no.”

“I wouldn’t have said no had I known they were dates.” Maybe, probably she doesn’t know really. It probably would have shocked her. “After I got over the shock.”

“So…is this our first official date?” Chouji asks hopefully, and she beams at him.

“I’d like that very much.” she tells him, and he grins back at her.

The next day she feels like she’s soaring on a cloud, and she arrives at training ground three to see Kakashi badly bruised and beat up. “What happened to you?”

“Maa, some angry woman wanting retribution,” Kakashi says, but then he shifts his stance. Sakura and Sasuke aren’t there yet, which is a little odd. “Actually, it was Kurenai,” Kakashi admits. “I’m sorry for telling you to avoid Chouji. I’m not ready for you to grow up.”

“Oh.” Naru frowns. “It’s not okay that you did that, but I forgive you.” She says, and to her surprise, Kakashi hugs her.

“You’re always going to be my baby.” He tells her seriously. “And if you ever want to know about your parents I’ll tell you as much as I can—I can’t tell you who they were, but I can tell you details about them.” She nods, hugging him tighter. She hasn’t a clue how he’d know, but she supposes that’s for another time.


End file.
